After watching Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey for the first time the other day in preparation for this event I finished the film thinking there’s no way that the scare maze could be as bad as that movie, oh how wrong I was.
The Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey scare maze is a UK debut at the inaugural Halloween Haunt Fest event in Hertfordshire and after seeing photos shared by the event of the incredible masks that had been hand made for the film I was so excited to see them up close and personal.
From the moment you enter the maze you can see that this particular one wasn’t finished. Construction workers were still taking things out and even constructing the exit ramp to the maze when we arrived and after a delayed opening we were ready to enter, oh how I wish we didn’t.
It’s crazy just how much effort goes into these events from the organisation to the actors who try their damn hardest with the environment they’re given and sadly on this occasion it just felt like a missed opportunity.
At no point did I feel like I was in the Seven Acre Woods and at no point did I feel immersed in the sets as one room which was passable for a cabin scene quickly disappeared and in the next there was black pond lining throughout large corridors or thin walls that when the stocky actors who played Winnie (hats off to the casting dept. on that one) hit the set a light nearly fell off and a wall nearly collapsed.
The iconic hot tub scene from the movie had no water in it just wooden boarding… if you didn’t want to fill it with all that water then simply add a pond mister in there over a few inches of water in the bottom and let the mist fill up the tub to give it that eerie vibe. Don’t board it off and add a blue cube light on top to simulate the water, cmon.
I know the film is terrible but making the maze even more terrible was such a shame to see.
The story of the maze seems to indicate that they know the film is bad and halfway through there is an editing suite as though the maze makers were like right, let’s see if we can fix this and improve it and then somehow, IT GETS WORSE!
All the themed sets disappear and you’re left with empty plain corridors and well-costumed actors with incredible masks on doing their best to scare you in these poorly themed environment that really doesn’t highlight any key scene of the movie with any resemblance of any kind.
I feel as though the filmmakers just signed off on this maze purely for promotional reasons but there’s no way that the people behind the film walked through this maze and were happy and proud to have this maze linked to their film, I just can’t fathom it at all.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre maze at least had promise in a few of the sets but this Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey maze was catastrophically bad to the point where I felt bad for the organisers as there has clearly been some issues here in getting this maze finished as explained by the pond lining and complete lack of effort shown in the second half of the maze.
My heart goes out to the actors who certainly tried their hardest but I’d love to know what went wrong here as it seemed like quite a significant drop in quality or tight deadlines led us to the final product of what we saw on press night.
The maze wasn’t ready, it didn’t feel well designed or complete in any shape or form and out of every maze at Halloween Haunt Fest this one needs no revisions, just a simple closing and starting again.
I may need to go and watch the movie again and appreciate it being in the so bad, it’s good department as opposed to this particular maze that is very firmly in the so bad, it’s BAD category.
